Of Closed Doors and Open Wounds

“Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst.” (Jn 20:26)

Fear is a big theme in the resurrection gospels. And fear means closed doors. In Mark, the women flee from the tomb in terror, unable to speak of what they have seen. In Matthew, Jesus greets them and they embrace his feet. In Luke, no one is quick to believe until Jesus shows them his hands and his feet and eats with them. In John, he shows his hands and his side, and goes further for Thomas, whose holy curiosity asks for more: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” (Jn 20:27)

Why does Jesus show the disciples his wounds? To prove that he is the same one who was crucified and laid in the tomb – that he is truly risen: not a ghost or a zombie or a figment of imagination and wishful thinking. He wants them to know him as the one who walked with them along the byways of Galilee and Judea. He wants them to recognize him as their teacher and master, who ate with them and washed their feet. He wants them to see that he went freely and for some reason to the suffering and death that seemed like disaster, but wasn’t. And now he is here before them, walking through closed doors, yes, but living, breathing, eating, inviting their touch. And his wounds remain.

God has been speaking to me about wounds for some years now. The wounds of his people. His wounds. My wounds.

Others have shared our curiosity – Thomas’ and mine – and taken it further. “But the nail (clavis) that pierced him has become for me a key (clavus) unlocking the sight of the Lord’s will. Why should I not gaze through the cleft? The nail cries out, the wound cries out that God is in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. ‘The iron pierced his soul’ and his heart has drawn near, so that he is no longer one who cannot sympathize with my weaknesses. The secret of his heart is laid open through the clefts of his body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open too the tender mercies of our God, in which the morning sun from on high has risen upon us. Surely his heart is laid open through his wounds!” (St Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs 61.4-5)

The doors are locked, but Jesus’ hands and feet and side are offered as keyholes that a door may be opened into God. “I want to see and touch the whole of him and – what is more – to approach the most holy wound in his side, the portal of the ark that is there made, and that not only to put my finger or my whole hand into it, but wholly enter into Jesus’ very heart, into the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant.” (William of St Thierry, On Contemplating God)

What lies in that hidden inner space, from where emerged the newborn Church in water and blood? It is the holy of holies, the place one enters by passing through veils: “Therefore, brothers … through the blood of Jesus we have confidence of entrance into the sanctuary by the new and living way he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh.” (Hb 10:19-20) Entering the ark means an encounter with the living God: “My Lord and my God!”

The unlocking of the door is also a wounding. Woundedness is healed by another kind of wounding. And for the latter, my soul thirsts, my body pines. Am I not the one who sings to you: “Mitte manum tuam, et cognosce loca clavorum. Put your hand here and know the place of the nails.” (Communion chant for Octave Day of Easter)

You put your hand into the place of the nails, into the opening, and my inner being yearns for you. O key of David…what you open none can shut and what you shut, none can open: Come! Bring the prisoner out of his dungeon where he sits in darkness and the shadow of death!

When the day comes to stand before Christ, eye to eye and wound to wound, I do not want there to be anything closed in me. Let me be opened.